Unlike many dads, my father was never a huge grilling fan. Daddy was happy to fire up the grill and flip a few burgers when Momma had them on the menu, but that was it. So I don’t know how I became such a huge grilling fan. We grill 12 months out of the year.
“People grill more now than they did in the ’60s and ’70s because of the increase in ownership of gas grills and the convenience of gas grills compared to starting a charcoal fire,” said Mike Kempster, executive vice president and CMO of Weber, one of the nation’s top grillmaking companies.
I think there’s more to it than that. Men have become more comfortable and creative when it comes to cooking. It’s no longer a woman’s domain.
Though Weber reports 65 percent of grillers prefer gas grills, compared to 46 percent preferring charcoal, I go with the latter. There’s nothing better than the flavor of a good steak seared over charcoal and hickory chips. You just can’t get that same flavor with gas.
Gas grills do have a few advantages over charcoal. They are more economical, a heck of a lot easier to light up, and they heat up faster, so cooking can commence much sooner.